Needs must
by thegirl20
Summary: Kahlan's duties as Mother Confessor must sometimes be put aside.


Kahlan watched Tilly, her personal handmaiden, make her way through the crowd of petitioners. She reached the front of the room and stopped just to the side of where Kahlan sat on her throne. Kahlan quirked an eyebrow in question and Tilly shook her head slightly, indicating that she needed to speak to Kahlan privately. Kahlan finished her conversation with the current petitioner and then beckoned Tilly closer.

"Yes, Tilly?" Kahlan asked, keeping her voice low.

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, Mother Confessor, but Mistress Cara sent me with a message for you," the young girl began, apparently unable to look Kahlan in the eyes. "She requires you. Urgently."

A few weeks ago, such words may have panicked Kahlan. But this was a regular occurrence of late and she merely sighed, unable to stop the muttered 'Again?' that escaped her lips, causing Tilly to blush deeply. Kahlan surveyed the room and stood, drawing all eyes.

"Petitions are finished for the morning," she announced. A few disgruntled whispers could be heard, quickly silenced by a glare from Kahlan. "We will resume this afternoon."

She noticed a few of her closest advisors trying to hide their smirks, and yet more their frustration; they knew as well as she did why she'd been called away. Purposefully not looking at anyone, she strode out of the throne room with as much dignity as she could muster.

*

Entering the Mother Confessor's chambers, she had no time to think before Cara had her pressed against the door, lips insistent and demanding on her own. She tried to match the pace of the kiss, cupping Cara's face and gently pushing her back. The stern expression Kahlan had been wearing had melted into one of affectionate indulgence. She raised an eyebrow at her wife.

"You couldn't wait until we broke for lunch?" she asked.

"No," Cara said, fingers already at work on the laces of Kahlan's dress. "I couldn't."

Kahlan laughed and let her hands slide down Cara's shoulders, over her arms, finally coming to rest on her swollen belly. The last few weeks of Cara's pregnancy had awakened certain appetites in the Mord'Sith that Kahlan could barely satiate.

"Tongues are wagging," Kahlan murmured as Cara pushed the confessor's dress off her shoulders.

"I don't care about any tongue except yours," Cara responded, making quick work of Kahlan's corset. "And I need you to use it on me."

Kahlan sighed heavily. "Well, if I must," she said, hiding her smile. Unfortunately, she'd forgotten that whatever was making Cara's baser needs stronger, was also affecting her emotions. The shorter woman stopped unlacing the corset and stepped back, eyes already brimming with tears. Kahlan immediately regretted her attempt at humour.

"If I'm an inconvenience to you, Mother Confessor, perhaps you should return to your work. You'd obviously rather be there than here."

Cara turned away from her and Kahlan's heart ached. She stepped forward and placed a hand on Cara's shoulder, wondering if she'd be shrugged off. It pleased her beyond words that she wasn't. Moving closer still, she pressed herself against Cara's back, moving her hands to cover Cara's own where they cradled her abdomen.

"There is nowhere," Kahlan whispered, tracing Cara's ear with her lips as she spoke. "In this world or any other, that I would rather be than right here with you."

She felt Cara's chest heave with a sob. Cara turned in her arms, pressing her face into Kahlan's neck as she struggled to stop crying. Kahlan held her and swayed them both gently, whispering nonsense into Cara's hair. When the tears had passed, Cara lifted her head and gave Kahlan a rueful smile.

"I hate this," she admitted, not for the first time. Kahlan nodded.

"I know you do," she said.

Kahlan had always imagined that having a child inside her would be the most wonderful feeling in the world. Indeed, when they'd used a process that Zedd had recommended to produce a baby, the intention had been for _Kahlan_ to be the once to conceive. As with many of Zedd's magical theories, it hadn't gone quite to plan and Cara had been the one who missed her monthly cycle and started throwing up at the most inopportune times. (The first being during a procession for a visiting dignitary.) Kahlan had been disappointed at the time, but soon forgot about it when she realised that _her_ baby was growing inside Cara. Cara's pregnancy woke Kahlan up to some of the realities of childbearing. The sickness passed, eventually, but then came the aches and the strange cravings. And, most unfortunately for Cara, the violent emotional swings. So it did not bother Kahlan one bit when Cara said she hated being pregnant. She had good reason to.

"It's...just...all the time," Cara continued, with a sigh, laying her head against Kahlan's shoulder. "I can handle the_need_...that's not so different. But these blasted tears! I can't stop them and I..."

Kahlan ran her hand up and down Cara's back. "I know, my love," she murmured. "I know."

Cara sniffed a few times and pulled back slightly. Her eyes were puffy red and her cheeks were wet and stained with tears. Kahlan thought she looked beautiful. Cara sighed.

"So, since I dragged you all the way up here, you might as well put yourself to good use," Cara said, the tiniest hint of mischief in her eyes. "We can't have the Mother Confessor neglecting her duties for no good reason."

Kahlan laughed in delight. "And what better reason could there be than providing her wife with a candlemark or two of pleasure?"

"I can't think of a single one," Cara agreed, gazing into Kahlan's eyes and suddenly looking very young. "I'm sorry for...being like this."

Kahlan shook her head and leaned in to kiss Cara's lips, barely touching them, before pulling back to look at her.

"There is no need to apologise," she said, emphasising every word. "Okay? You are not an inconvenience to me and you never will be. And I will be here whenever you need me to be, whether it's to rub your feet or pleasure you or just because you need a hug."

Cara frowned. "Mord'Sith do not need hugs."

Kahlan glanced down at the position they were standing in, with Cara firmly in her arms. She looked at the blonde with a smile and Cara sighed.

"Fine. Hugs are occasionally required," she said, squirming as Kahlan kissed her nose.

"Yes, they are," Kahlan agreed, lowering her voice. "But I won't tell anyone you said so."

Cara rolled her eyes. "Are we going to do anything besides hug? As pleasant as it is, I have some rather pressing needs that you said you would attend to."

"I did, didn't I..." Kahlan's smile grew predatory as her eyes swept over Cara's body, clad in a simple cotton dress. She had worn leathers as long as she possibly could, but had succumbed to the need for comfort and easy access a few weeks before.

One of Kahlan's hands came up to cup Cara's jaw, the other moving lower on her back to pull them closer together as their lips met. The thrill of feeling Cara's belly press against her, hard and soft at once, was something Kahlan had not grown used to and it spurred her to deepen the kiss, thrusting her tongue into Cara's mouth and revelling in the moan it drew from the other woman. She could feel Cara tugging at her clothing.

"Off...I want...skin," Cara panted, after wrenching her mouth from Kahlan's.

Kahlan grinned at how ravaged Cara looked already, with her darkened eyes and her mussed hair. She quickly finished the job of removing her corset that Cara had started, her undergarments being shed along with it. Cara was on her right away, a hand stroking her nipple which was already straining to the point of being painful. Her other hand snaked between Kahlan's legs. Kahlan gasped at the contact, but fought to retain her grip on the situation. She gently removed Cara's hand from between her legs, pulling it up and urging Cara to take her own fingers into her mouth, watching her eyes close as the taste of Kahlan covered her tongue.

While Cara was momentarily distracted, Kahlan worked to quickly divest her of her dress so that they were both equally naked. The Mother Confessor dropped to her knees, her hands spread wide over Cara's stomach, claiming it as her own. She kissed the underside of the bump, a tender brush of lips, before licking her way up, over Cara's protruding belly button, pushing to her feet in order to reach her breasts, taking one into her mouth and cupping the other in her hand.

A hand twisted in her hair and yanked and she found herself looking into Cara's eyes.

"Stop. Teasing." Cara panted. Kahlan grinned and drove two fingers hard between Cara's legs, finding her slick with need.

"As you wish," she whispered against Cara's lips, continuing to thrust into her wife, though she stayed away from the sensitive spot she knew Cara longed to have touched. "On the bed."

It was a command, and one Cara took willingly. They moved as one to the bed and Cara settled herself on the edge, leaning back on her elbows as Kahlan kneeled between her legs, having to glance to the side to see Cara around her belly. She smiled at the blonde and got an impatient eyebrow raise in return. She laughed and decided not to make Cara wait any longer.

She leaned in and licked the length of Cara, coating her tongue with Cara's arousal, the heady scent of it nearly making her dizzy. Using her fingers to spread Cara wider, she flattened her tongue and it pressed hard against Cara's clit, dragging it slowly over the enflamed flesh. Cara's howl of approval met her ears and she did it again, finishing this time with a series of short, hard licks before teasing with just the very tip of her tongue.

Her name resounded around the room, echoing in her ears as she slid her tongue inside her wife, gliding through the smoothness. She curled it as she withdrew, stroking Cara's sensitive walls and thrusting in again. Cara's hands were in her hair, her heels digging into Kahlan's back and she knew from the mewls and whines coming from her that she was close. With one final kiss to Cara's clit, she replaced her mouth with her hand and started to thrust with some force, using her thumb to apply pressure where it was needed.

Pushing herself up she joined Cara on the bed, helping her to move away from the edge a little as she settled herself beside her. Cara's eyes found her own and she leaned in and brought their lips together, her own slippery with Cara's arousal. They turned instinctively to meet each other, still fitting together somehow, even with the changes to Cara's body. Cara's hands grasped desperately at Kahlan as she moved with her, reaching for release. Kahlan watched her face, waiting for the moment. Just before Cara came apart in her hands, she moved her free hand to Cara's belly, splaying it over the skin there.

"I love you," she whispered, fusing their lips together.

Cara's orgasm hit hard and she clenched violently around Kahlan's fingers, crying out and clinging to Kahlan more tightly. Kahlan let her ride it out, continuing to stroke her as she came down. She kissed her closed eyelids and her cheeks and her nose and her chin, all the while rubbing her belly.

When Cara regained the power of speech, she turned to grin lazily at Kahlan. Kahlan smiled back.

"I trust your needs have been adequately attended to, Mistress Cara?" she teased.

"For now," Cara purred. "But I may require your services again today. I trust that won't be a problem?"

Kahlan kissed her forehead, sliding her hand around to Cara's back and pulling her more snugly against her body.

"It will not be a problem," she promised, then sighed. "I should get back, I suppose."

"No," Cara said, her voice muffled against Kahlan's chest. "Just stay. Tell them you need the rest of the day."

"You're insatiable," Kahlan said with a slow grin.

Cara lifted her head and traced a finger down Kahlan's throat, between her breasts. She looked up at her from beneath her lashes.

"Not me. You," she all but growled. "I had the Mother Confessor kneeling before me just now...it would be disrespectful of me not to pay her the same courtesy."

Kahlan's loins flared at the words and the tone they were delivered in, but she tried to control herself.

"Cara, you don't ha-" The sentence was lost in a hiss as Cara bent her neck and bit her nipple.

"No I don't have to," Cara said, Kahlan's delicate skin still between her teeth. "But we should take advantage of this time while we have it. By next week I'll most likely be too fat to move and then after that we'll both be constantly exhausted from running around after this little thing." She stroked her bump affectionately. Kahlan's nipple slid out from between her teeth and they came together with a soft clack. "And I want to," she continued, breaking into a wicked smile. "Because I love you."

Kahlan groaned. Cara knew fine well that Kahlan could not resist those particular words.

"Well, since you put it that way," she said. "And you're not fat."

"I'm as heavy as a decent sized shadrin, Kahlan," Cara said, shifting into a position that allowed her to better touch her lover.

"But far, _far_ more beautiful," Kahlan said, stroking some hair back off Cara's face and smiling at her eyeroll.

"Rest your tongue now," Cara said, her hand starting its journey southwards. "You'll be in need of it soon."

Kahlan did as she was told, her last conscious thought was that she should probably get word to the Council that she would be gone for the rest of the day.


End file.
